Sound Point audio tour of Green Line art

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (July 1, 2014) — METRO Green Line customers can experience another dimension of public art at new light-rail stations with Sound Point — an interactive audio tour offered by Metro Transit and Minnesota Public Radio.

Each of the 18 new Green Line stations — from Union Depot Station in Lowertown St. Paul to West Bank Station on the Minneapolis campus of University of Minnesota — features public art representative of its surrounding community. The stories behind the artworks can now be discovered through first-person recorded interviews with the artists themselves. Sound Point interviews can be accessed by mobile device via texting a short code or scanning a QR code printed on posters at each station. Interviews are also available online through Green Line station pages at metrotransit.org.

“There are millions of stories related to the neighborhoods served by the Green Line,” said Metro Transit General Manger Brian Lamb. “Public art at stations helps express the unique stories of those communities and Sound Point allows artists to express the stories behind these inspiring works.”

“MPR knows how to tell stories with sound, and now mobile devices let us share stories about a place with listeners who are standing right there,” said Jeff Jones, MPR’s Sound Point producer. “It’s great that there are 18 brand new works of public art spread across our cities. This partnership allows Green Line riders to learn directly from the artists who created them.”

Metro Transit and MPR have previously collaborated on a Sound Point tour of the Northstar Commuter Rail line that runs from Target Field in Minneapolis to Big Lake, Minn. The Northstar audio tour is available at metrotransit.org/northstar. Other Sound Point locations around the state include the Enger Tower in Duluth and public art and murals in Minneapolis.

In addition to Sound Point, the posters at each Green Line station feature photos and descriptions of the surrounding neighborhood. Content was developed in collaboration with neighborhood groups from each station area to provide residents and visitors additional history and information about communities along the Central Corridor.

Metro Transit is a service of the Metropolitan Council. Customers boarded buses and trains operated by Metro Transit more than 81 million times in 2013.

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) operates a 45-station radio network serving nearly all of Minnesota and parts of surrounding states. Reaching 900,000 listeners each week, MPR and its three regional services — MPR News, Classical MPR and The Current — produce programming for radio, online and face-to-face audiences. Programs produced by MPR’s parent company, American Public Media, reach more than 18 million listeners on more than 900 radio stations nationwide each week. A complete list of stations, programs and additional services can be found at minnesotapublicradio.org.